10/1/2017 – The organisers of the FIDE World Cup 2017 invited a local freelance journalist named Ioseb Qipshidze to look into the circumstances surrounding the abrupt departure of Canadian GM Anton Kovalyov at the start of the third round, and shared his reporting with ChessBase. We publish the key portions of it and link to the full version. Although Qipshidze did not reach Kovalyov himself for comment, we did, and will include his response in an editorial postscript to follow shortly. | Photos: Amruta Mokal / ChessBase India (except where noted)

10/1/2017 – Magnus Carlsen has only one obstacle between him and his first tournament victory in over a year: Hikaru Nakamura. Carlsen's a clear favourite with white and a half point edge in Isle of Man. His eighth round win over Caruana, with the black pieces was extremely impressive, and he has only lost a classical game to Nakamura (with any colour) once (in Bilbao, 2016)! Hou Yifan, since taking a bye in round 5 has one three in a row and faces Anand on board 2! Watch games from the ninth and final round live... | Photos: Alina l'Ami

10/1/2017 – It was a much awaited clash, as Magnus Carlsen faced Fabiano Caruana in round eight of the Chess.com Isle of Man Open on the top board. Caruana unleashed the novelty, but then got cold feet and was soon swept away by the Carlsen tsunami. Hikaru Nakamura dispatched Emil Sutovsky and set up a final duel with the World Champion for gold. Hou Yifan scored her third straight win over GMs and is now tied for third. | Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova

9/30/2017 – World Cup runner-up, Ding Liren, the chess player, is well known to everyone. But what about Ding Liren the person. Not much is known about his personal life, his education, his likes, dislikes, hobbies, his girlfriend, daily routine, future aims and so on. It was with the aim to fill this void that IM Sagar Shah met with Ding after his World Cup 2017 journey and interviewed him. The answers of Chinese player show you the kind of person he is. To put it succinctly: his feet are firmly secured to the ground, but his mind thinks big and he aims high — very high! | Photo: Ding Liren's archives

9/30/2017 – With so many great players, it is little wonder the tournament has had so many great clashes, and rounds six and seven were that in the spades. The sole leader is now Magnus Carlsen, after smashing Pavel Eljanov in round six, but only by the thinnest of margins, and will meet Fabiano Caruana in round eight. After Hou Yifan returned to action, she scored two convincing wins. Enjoy this report plush with GM analysis and great photos! | Analysis: Elshan Moradiabadi; Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova

9/29/2017 – Yes, it's a real thing! Yesterday was National Poetry Day, an annual celebration of poetry in the United Kingdom, and it reminded us of a unusual chess connection involving Jennifer Shahade playing blindfold while a computer "ChessBard" generated live poetry based on the moves played. Shahade has pioneered events combining chess and art, and annotated games for the book Marcel Duchamp: The Art of Chess. A new book on Duchamp, coming out next week, is a collection of his games as reimagined by the "ChessBard". You can compose your own works of art on chesspoetry.com. | Photo: Tony Yueh

9/27/2017 – Since round four ended with the four leaders drawing their respective games, now seven share first with 3.5/4, from Magnus Carlsen to Alexander Lenderman. Hou Yifan, who faced her fourth consecutive female opponent, requested a half point bye in round 5, but contrary to rumour has no intention to withdraw for now. | Analysis by GM Elshan Moradiabadi; Photo: Alina L'Ami

9/27/2017 – It could all have ended today had it not been for some heroic defence by Ding Liren. After getting an extremely bad position out of opening, it seemed as if the Chinese player had no chances of survival. But he started to make his moves quickly and confidently and Levon Aronian who was clearly under pressure, couldn't find the best possible way to make most of his advantage. With all the four classical games ending in draws we are now going into the tiebreaks to decide who will win the World Cup 2017. | Photo: Amruta Mokal

9/26/2017 – You may have noticed some changes on the News page recently. Today we unveiled an updated design for individual posts, which we hope you'll regard as an improvement. Last week was the soft-launch of a new Quiz feature you can find in the right sidebar available for ChessBase Account holders. Did you know who finished in fourth place at the 2007 Wijk aan Zee tournament? Try it out!

9/26/2017 – Photography, and notably chess photography, is a tricky thing, since on the one hand it seems so simple, while on the other it is clear some do it a lot better than others. You might be inclined to dismiss this as a matter of talent or expensive equipment, but the truth is one can do very well even with a smartphone following some basic rules of thumb.

9/26/2017 – James Tarjan is 65 years old and has an Elo rating of 2412, but he was clearly the story of the day at the Chess.com Isle of Man International after beating Vladimir Kramnik in round 3. While the former World Champion stumbled, the current one, Magnus Carlsen, remained in charge. He won against World Junior Champion Jeffrey Xiong and is now tied on a perfect 3.0 / 3 together with three other players. Annotations by GM Tiger Hillarp-Persson | Lead Photo: Chess.com / Maria Emelianova | Other photos: Alina l'Ami

9/26/2017 – Knights surprise again and again. One single knight can frighten king, queen and rooks of your opponent (or yourself) or block strong and dangerous passed pawns. But sometimes knights are helpless against a single pawn that wants to queen. No wonder that knight endings are full of tactical tricks.